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Bill Fay Staff Writer

57 Blog Posts

121 News Articles

Bill Fay is a journalism veteran with a nearly four-decade career in reporting and writing for daily newspapers, magazines and public officials. His focus at Debt.org is on frugal living, veterans' finances, retirement and tax advice. Bill can be reached at bfay@debt.org.

Bill Fay Biography

Bill Fay came to Debt.org with 38 years of writing experience, 24 years of marriage experience and 21 years parenting experience . . . and still counting, in all three areas.

His writing is often a mixed bag of his triple life experiences as husband/father/Irish Catholic, though he insists that he seeks “information from someone on the other side” to include in all his stories.

“There are (at least) two sides to every story,” Bill said. “I already know mine and whatever I write certainly will reflect that. But I don’t like one-sided stories. I want to offer some balance by including information from the other side. That’s why I invite readers input/comment/criticism on any subject I write about.”

Bill has written for newspapers, magazines, broadcast journalism and marketing organizations during his professional career. His skills, however, were first developed by Sister Rosari at Ascension Catholic School.

“You’re never going to make a living playing sports,” the good nun told him in 7th grade, “so you’d better work a little harder on your writing.”

Sister Rosari, as usual, was correct.

Bill wrote about sports for 23 years, starting at the Tampa Tribune as a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of South Florida. He covered high school sports while finishing his last three years at USF, a school he describes as “having three pools, 26 tennis courts, an 18-hole golf course … and several buildings where you could go and learn something, if you wanted to.”

Bill continued covering preps his first three years out of college, then became the beat reporter for the Tribune’s coverage of the University of Miami during their run through the 80s that included three national championships and plenty of off-field drama.

At the same time, the Tribune had Bill report on the Miami Dolphins and the first five years of the Don Shula-Dan Marino era. He covered five AFC Championship games and Super Bowls XVIII and XXV in that capacity.

During that time, Bill was the Tribune’s primary writer for college basketball and baseball. He covered the NCAA Tournament from 1983-1988 and the College World Series during that same time period.

His last stop for the Tribune was as a beat writer for the Orlando Magic when the franchise started in 1989 through 1996, including the appearance in the 1995 NBA Finals.

He moved to Sunshine Network (now Sun Sports) in 1996 to start that company’s website and a nightly, hour-long show called Sunshine Network Live. His on-air appearances alongside TV veterans Pat Clarke and Charles Davis convinced Bill that writing was his most reliable communications skill.

He returned to writing in 2004, taking a job as the Communications Officer for LYNX, the public transportation agency in Orlando. He spent eight years at LYNX, writing speeches for the CEO, news stories, community presentations and advertising copy before one of the chief administrators decided “. . . the communications department no longer needs a writer.”

That opened the door to working for Debt.org and what Bill considers one of the most satisfying years of his life. His wife Susan secured full-time employment as an art teacher; his oldest son graduated from the University of Florida and is moving on to law school; his middle child is enrolled at Florida State and already involved in radio there and his youngest son just got his driver’s license.

Bill says that all those life experiences come in handy when writing about debt. He hopes visitors to Debt.org will accept his invitation to be part of the process in helping decide what stories to write and what slant to take on those stories to entertain and inform our readers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which prides itself on being the watchdog for U.S. consumers, has been snarling at America’s three major credit bureaus for a while and finally decided to take a bite out of their bottom lines this year.
The CFPB ...

Debt collectors frequently use threats to extract payment from the more than 70 million consumers who fall behind on their bills, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reports in a new study of collection industry practices.
The federal agency reported ...

When Ryan Dwyer received his undergraduate history degree from the University of South Florida in 2016, he felt a sense of accomplishment. His hard work had paid off with society’s definition of the ticket to a brighter future.
But the degree has simply ...

American consumers say they are having an easier time paying bills and are feeling much less stress over their financial situation than they were in 2009… unless they happen to be a Millennial, a woman, Hispanic, African-American, or less-than-college ...

During Alan Greenspan’s nearly 20-year reign as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, commentators used to look at the heft of the briefcase he carried to meetings to guess whether interest rates were about to rise or fall: thin case, no change; fat case, brace ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed new rules aimed at putting more responsibility on payday loan lenders and their crippling triple-digit interest rates.
The CFPB proposals would require lenders to determine before making a loan whether ...

Now that the college graduation parties are over, parents and students can sit down and have a serious talk about who's going to pay for it.
College, that is, not the parties.
The cost of college and how families are paying for it, has dimmed the ...

The latest trends in spending and debt indicate that America already has forgotten any lessons we might have learned when the bubble burst on the U.S. economy in 2008.
The reputable and renowned Pew Charitable Trust says that 80% of American adults are in ...

Analysts predict record-setting sales for the automobile industry over the next year, though feuding between government leaders over whether discrimination exists in car financing could slow things down.
WardsAuto Dealer Magazine says that new car sales ...

The United States government is opening the door to retirement savings for the millions of Americans who have nothing invested there, but a word of caution if you go inside: There’s not much to see.
The federal government is offering a retirement account ...

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